There’s been quite a buzz over the last day or two as Nama makes the headlines. It seems to come at a staggering cost of nearly € 70 billion. It’s money the state doesn’t have and it’s all been borrowed from Europe to bail out property developers, speculators, friends of Fianna fail and lastly the banks.

The State’s lack of meaningful regulation of the Banks is a primary cause of the debacle, that and the refusal to recognize the overheating of the property market as a whole could have catastrophic consequences. They (Irish Government) commissioned a report in 2000 which recommended the cooling of the property market and the taking of measures to discourage investors ( you can read it here ). This report was implemented but then shelved at the behest of Builders etc…

So the stage was set for property bubble to bust. The cost of Nama to the Irish taxpayer is more than the doubling of the national debt which was at €54 billion. It is likely to hit nearly €150 billion by the time Fianna fail leaves office. Incidentally there’s no money there for any stimulus package for the economy (create jobs or anything like that). It’s a shocking use of the state finances to basically bail out the fat cats whilst people get to stay on trolleys in hospitals corridors, kids get to go school in prefabs.